Terry; Or, She ought to have been a Boy

by Rosa M. Gilbert

Nurse came in and took them off to bed, but Terry kept thinking of her morning adventure. She did not think of it as an adventure, but as a delightful surprise for Gran'ma.

"She does so much for us," thought Terry, "and we can do so little for her! And she will find it so nice to have a good fresh egg for breakfast!"

Still Terry felt it would never do to tell Nursey of her intentions. She would be sure to think that everything would go wrong. Rain would come on, or Connolly's really wouldn't have any eggs, or the pony would go lame. But won't she smile up all over when she sees Gran'ma eating her fresh egg at breakfast-time!

The greatest dread Terry felt was of oversleeping herself. She fell asleep as soon as her head was on the pillow, but wakened with a start as the clock was striking three. She could hear Nurse snoring through the wall, and Nurse Nancy had a most peculiar snore, first a long-drawn note, as of a horn, and then a little whistle.

"I wonder how she does it," said Terry to herself, and tried to imitate the sounds. "I couldn't. It's awfully clever of her. And when you see her going about in the daytime you would never think she could do it."

Terry thought it would be quite easy to lie awake, waiting, for three hours. However, after listening for about five minutes to Nursey's snoring, and blowing through her own little nose to try to do the same, she was fast asleep again.

She wakened again exactly at a quarter to six. The moonlight was now pouring into the room, and she could see everything as well as if by day. She got up and went out to the landing to look at the clock, and stood there in her white night-dress, with her little bare toes on the carpet, gazing at the solemn white face of the tall brown clock which Granny said had stood there just as she was for quite two hundred years. It was impossible not to think of this clock as a personage, and she was accustomed to change her character very much as Terry changed her moods. Sometimes she was a cheery old creature, hurrying on the time with her pleasant chimes, coaxing round the sunshine out of the dark, and bringing back the cosy bed-time when children were tired. At other times she had the air of a stern prophetess, with a threat in every "tick, tick", and a hint of doom in the striking of every hour. As she stood now in her brown cloak darkened by the moonlight, and her round meaningless face whitened by it, she recalled to Terry a remark once made by Granny, "Many a life she has ticked away out of this house, and out of this world, has that old great-grandfather's clock, my children!"

"She sha'n't tick my life away," thought Terry. "I hope she won't tick away Gran'ma's and Nursey's! But that is nonsense, of course. Granny couldn't have meant that she had anything to do with it, for that is only God's business!"

These ideas just flashed through Terry's little head as she stared at the clock and heard her give that curious snarl with which she always warned one that there were but three minutes left of the passing hour. And the hour hand was at six.

It was just the time for Terry. She dressed quickly, putting on the little riding-skirt that she had brought from Africa. It was some inches shorter than it had been then; but never mind, it was all right.